About

Where We’ve Come From

The roots of Green Timbers Covenant Church go back to 1943, when a Covenant Church was organized in the Fraserview area of Vancouver. Unfortunately, that congregation closed in 1964, but funds from the sale of the property were held in reserve for the beginning of a new congregation. However, Green Timbers still enjoys the presence and participation of some of the people from that original Vancouver ministry.

By 1971, fellowship meetings were being held in Surrey and North Delta, with the support of Covenant leaders from both Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. In 1972, those Covenant groups became aware of another group meeting in Surrey, The Green Timbers Christian Fellowship, whose families had a Mennonite Brethren background. The Mennonite group had already purchased a United Church building on 88th Avenue where it had met since 1967.

In 1972, the Covenant fellowship groups and the Mennonite Brethren fellowship decided to join together in a common ministry in the Surrey area, and the first service of the combined groups was held in March, 1973, with long-time Covenant pastor Albert Josephson coming to Surrey as the developer pastor of the new congregation.

The current building on 88th Avenue was completed in 1977, after fire claimed the original United Church building. In 1981, the congregation welcomed Rev. Wally Coots to its staff as the first full-time assistant pastor in the Canada Conference of the Covenant. Rev. Coots helped build a strong youth ministry which established Green Timbers as a leader in family-related ministries in the Covenant.

1987 saw the expansion of the Covenant ministry in Surrey with the beginning of Emmanuel Covenant Church in the White Rock area as a church plant from Green Timbers. And in 1994, the first phase of another new ministry was completed: the opening of 32 units of Senior Housing in Covenant Village. The original housing has been expanded and today, Covenant Village operates as an independent corporation.

In recent years, the area around the church has changed dramatically, and new cross-cultural outreach efforts have been tried with a parking lot program for children and youth, community events like carnivals, and ESL (English as a Second Language) classes offered to people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.
But the impact of the congregation has been felt far beyond the local neighbourhood. Green Timbers has produced at least five pastors who serve in various places throughout North America. Besides those pastors and leaders coming directly from Green Timbers, the church has supported several students from Regent College through pastoral internships.

(Based on One Hundred Years: The Evangelical Covenant Church in Canada, edited by Keith C. Fullerton.)